


sea foam

by buichim



Category: TWICE (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/F, Little Mermaid Elements, Trans Allegory, by accident but oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28110582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buichim/pseuds/buichim
Summary: Nayeon is a mermaid who wants to be human. Jeongyeon helps her to the surface.
Relationships: Im Nayeon/Yoo Jeongyeon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15
Collections: sapphest





	sea foam

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [sapphest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/sapphest) collection. 



> twist on the little mermaid where the "evil" witch falls in love with the mermaid that wants to be human (no prince required)
> 
> no fandom preference, you can go as nsfw or sfw as u want, it can even be a bit dark if u want although DNW major character death or rape, characters may be trans or cis up to you
> 
> \--

There is a land, beneath the unruly sea, that hosts creatures that do not see the light of day. Here swim the seafolk, with their hair flowing with the current and their strong tails beating against it. They are a lovely people, shy but kind if you treat them well. But would you have the chance; less so, for they rarely breach the surface to feel the sun on their skin.

These seafolk, they spend their time frolicking among the seaweed, dancing with the fish, chasing sand dollars. They have trees and buildings and songs. No need for that surface world. But, of course, this does not mean they are not curious. None more so than Nayeon, the eldest of the seafolks’ king, who would look up at the glistening surface and wonder how it would feel to break that far away ceiling.

“Are you not curious, sisters?” her hands say wistfully to her younger siblings as they brush each other’s hair in their sea palace.

“Are you not scared?” their hands would reply. Home is comfort, safe. The news brought back from the surface was never anything good. Tales of men stealing their schools of fish, hunting _them,_ the rulers of the seas. “Stay away from the surface, unnie, stay home with us.”

Nayeon stays home, of course. She is burdened by duty, far unlike her sisters. The next in line and the favourite of the king. She has no room for fancies for the surface world, not when she has to learn so much. But — she can’t help it. She can’t help but to look up at the passing bellies of the ships those legged things used to pass over their land. Can’t help to look up and wonder, would there be something else up there, perhaps something just for me. A new world for her to explore. A place where her head was light from the pressures of a crown.

She doesn’t dare to go up, to go see for herself. So instead she looks at the things that came down to her. Strange objects that she couldn’t guess at their purpose. Beautiful things that fascinated her. Things that she wanted for herself, different than what she had lived with her whole life. It felt more right to dream of dancing on a floor, breathing in air rather than water, than to swim through the currents with the dolphins.

Sometimes she looks at her tail, at its glimmering scales and strong muscles. Yes, she could admire its beauty but as her hands glided over it she would imagine that instead she had two legs, covered in light hair and knees for them to bend. And, at the end, instead of fins, two feet with ten toes.

Her sisters did not understand these thoughts. They were comfortable within their skin and their role. It was just Nayeon who felt so… other.

Talking to her King Father led to no rest for her mind either. “My daughter, your place is here,” his hands say, “The land above has nothing for us. I have gone and come back so I know, more so than others. These feelings will pass.”

Nayeon wants so desperately for these feelings to pass. She waits and waits, for that seemingly mythic day to come, the day that she could breathe and not feel like she was drowning. But it did not come and when the far off sun shone down on them through the water, Nayeon could not bear to see it. So she hides, down and far from the sun’s reach, into the deep inky trenches that never saw light.

There, she meets Jeongyeon.

She had heard of her before, as a story meant to scare. A warning, so to speak. The one with creeping limbs, each one strong and dangerous, ready to reel you in. “A predator,” they would say, “she’d eat you alive.” But there were other whispers too — whispers of her powers. Her potions and her promises. She could change the current that pushes you and lead you somewhere new. “But the cost,” they’d say ruefully, “It’s always too much.”

A being with more power than even her father but entirely alone. They meet, fittingly, at the edge of a crop of anemone; something beautiful, peaceful, but only for those who can stand its poison. Home, but only for the strongest.

Jeongyeon, nameless for now, looks at Nayeon, first with surprise then with suspicion. Few find her and those who do come with demands. Nayeon has none; she just watches curiously, this creature that she has heard of through rumour and who is already nothing like the image in her mind. She had imagined something—not ugly. But something that would warn Nayeon of her sinister ways. A scar, perhaps, or fangs too big for her mouth. Something that announced her threat. But there is nothing. Nothing but her pale beautiful face and the golden hair that floats around it. Her tail is not a tail. It takes a moment for Nayeon to notice it, so adept is her camouflage, but there she sees it! Not one strong limb, adorned with shimmering scales, but several curling around the seabed, eight in total, each curled tight and hidden. A rare creature, or at least one very easily disguised. Nayeon had little memory of ever encountering anything similar to Jeongyeon.

There is nothing to say. Jeongyeon leaves before Nayeon can think to open her palm. Later, Nayeon would wish that she had at least said hello—at least told her how fascinating she appeared.

After that first strange encounter, she goes down to the depths with purpose. No longer just avoiding the sun’s touch, but now hoping for a chance to see her again. A chance to talk to her. Her hands had appeared so slender and beautiful — to see them dance through words would be a gift to treasure.

Her chance comes to her in a storm. The belly of a human ship passes overhead, dangerous. It falls from above, sinking down, heavy with their strange treasures, the two legged humans struggling in the water, unable to breathe in water and choking. The taste of death taints the pure sea but there is struggle too, struggle for the ones that still cling desperately to life, trying to kick their way back to the surface. Nayeon can not bring air to their lips but she can bring them back, just a few, just enough.

That’s where she sees Jeongyeon again. Rarely she left her hidden depths but perhaps these cries for help reached her ears. In each strong limb she carries a sailor and they see each other, helping in what little way they can, and they nod in understanding. Nayeon sees Jeongyeon kiss the mouths of dying humans and watches them take in terrifying watery breaths. They struggle against it, until they realise what it means. Jeongyeon can’t communicate with them in any meaningful way — they do not know the way hands can speak and they try to shout in that distinctly human way. Questions and fear, _witch,_ until Nayeon can’t take it anymore and shouts as well. The first time she has ever used her voice and, to her surprise, she finds that it works. Her voice, never used, works and these sailors listen.

“Go this way, land creature,” she says, lips forming around these foreign words. They come not from her thoughts but something deeper — instinct. “Your land will find you.”

Jeongyeon looks at her with wide eyes and finally her hands find words. “What are you doing?” she asks, “How are you doing this?”

But Nayeon has no answer to these questions. Just an ability that she knows she can use to help these strange creatures and so she must. Slowly but surely, Nayeon and Jeongyeon work together to save what few humans they can. They send them on their way to salvation — Jeongyeon’s spell will last until it is no longer needed. They will survive.

After, Jeongyeon does not leave. She watches Nayeon with curious eyes. “Your voice is something unusual,” her hands say slowly, each movement exact.

One of Nayeon’s hands finds her throat. The thing aches, in a way it never did before. She had never used it to speak, only to eat and breathe. Distractedly, one hand says, “I never knew I could do that.”

“It means something,” Jeongyeon’s hands emphatically say. “You are more than what you appear to be. Come, let’s talk somewhere more private.”

They go, not to the depths, but up towards the surface. Jeongyeon’s golden hair shines the closest they get to the light. Nayeon can feel the difference in the water, the change in temperature, as they go up and up. When they are just a few feet away from the shining surface, Nayeon stops. She’s scared; she has never gone this far before. Jeongyeon turns to her and smiles, her hand held out to her.

“There is nothing to fear,” her nimble fingers say. Her smile agrees. Nayeon touches her hand, flesh against flesh, and is pulled to the surface.

The break is the hardest part. Suddenly, there is no pressure against her head but also, for the first time, her hair sticks straight down, flat against her skull. Her first gasp of air stings something fierce, odd so odd, and she understands how terrified those sailors had been to breathe as she had always known it. But Jeongyeon’s mouth goes over hers and something changes: she breathes in through her nose, her eyes open wide, and it feels right. When Jeongyeon leans away, Nayeon has to stop herself from following.

Nayeon pants, her lungs working in a way they never had before. Above, the sky is dark, illuminated only by pinpricks of far off lights. And there! The moon, full and fat, smiling down on them.

Jeongyeon hides her smile beneath the waves. She still needs to breathe water but she comes up occasionally, her lips closed against the cold air.

“Sing for me,” her hands say. The movements are graceless and too quick out of the water but that might just be excitement. There’s a demand in the shape of her fingers but Nayeon doesn’t chafe against it.

“I don’t know how,” Nayeon says, with her mouth, the one gifted with air by Jeongyeon. The words land on her ears like a bubble against the palm; soft and gentle. Her first words, in a way.

“Yes, you do,” Jeongyeon’s hands say, “Like what you’re doing now. But longer. More. There’s no need for words.”

Nayeon opens her mouth again. She closes her eyes, Jeongyeon’s eager eyes making her nervous. She pulls a note from her throat, something low and full of longing. Something new but so much a part of her that it’s easy to unearth. Like opening an oyster with the right knife, easy once you know how, and pulling pearls from its flesh. Each sound is a pearl, shiny and beautiful, precious and also a sign of survival. She goes deeper, finding the right way to mould her voice how she wants, until she sounds like a song; magical.

She opens her eyes eventually, long after her voice has stopped. There’s something about the sounds she creates that fill her with emotion, a sort of sadness that she can’t explain. Jeongyeon looks at her with wonder.

“You have a gift,” she says with her mouth. The words are raspy, unused to being said. Determined, all the same. The way her eyes shine reminds Nayeon of the stars.

“What do I do with it?”

“Whatever you want, sweet princess. It is yours.”

This thought stays with Nayeon all through the night, as she goes back to her home, once again filling her lungs with water, and says farewell to her new friend. It’s odd to breathe like this now, she finds; it feels so much like drowning. But she has something she didn’t before — or perhaps she had always had it? This was never something she was taught, just something she knew, like how she knows how to swim. She whispers to herself sometimes, not brave enough to sing, and it’s not the same; the water muffles her voice, quietens her, makes her less. To really hear her own sound she needs to go back to the surface.

Her sisters ask where she was, in the morning. The whole palace was worried sick. When there’s a storm, when the ships of the two-leggeds fall, they’re meant to stay inside, away from danger. Nayeon doesn’t tell them about Jeongyeon, about saving those humans; she doesn’t know what they would think about that. Her father, her king, looks at her with worried eyes.

Nayeon tries. She plays and talks with her sisters, she works with her father. But she thinks about her voice, about Jeongyeon. She thinks about humanity and how much she yearns for it. She can’t speak this out loud. She knows everyone’s opinion of Jeongyeon the witch, of humanity. But with each passing hour, with each passing minute, the more sure she is — her place is not here, beneath the waves, with her family. It’s somewhere else, even if it isn’t amongst humans.

There would be things she would miss about her life here, were she ever to leave. The warmth of the Southern current in the morning, the feeling of dancing with dolphins she’s grown up with. The shape and colour of the local fish that liked to curl around her tail. And her tail. Iridescent, pink fading into blue, colourful, eye-catching. Beautiful, as she’s been told all her life. She loves it, in a way, but it’s not hers. Not really. It was something she shared with her sisters, something she got from her parents. Not like her newly discovered voice. That was all her own.

So, yes, there were things she loved here. Her sisters, her father, her home. But there was more out there. More out there for her. And, unbidden, her thoughts turn to Jeongyeon.

Jeongyeon, who didn’t give her her voice, but was there when she discovered it. Who seemed so scary and unapproachable before, shadowed by rumours, but is actually so different. There’s something there. Something different. Jeongyeon is different from Nayeon, in so many ways, but she thinks there might be something in her eyes that she understands. She thinks that Jeongyeon might understand her too.

Jeongyeon has consumed her thoughts. Every little thing about her fascinates her. She wants to know more.

Her father notices her distracted thoughts more than her sisters do. His large and gentle hands stop her one evening, his eyes kind. Slowly, his hands say, “My child, I can sense your unhappiness. What is on your mind?”

Her hands shake when she tells him, “I need to go, my king. My place isn’t here. I feel like my place has never been here. Maybe it can be again, someday, but I need to leave and find my own self.”

He holds her shaking hands in his steady ones. His shoulders drop, defeated, but he smiles. “My wonderful child,” his hands tell her, “My beautiful daughter. I knew this was coming. I’ve seen it building and building. For a long time, I’ve tried to think of ways for you to find your happiness without leaving me. But I know now that it isn’t possible. I’ve been selfish, my child. You have your own way to find.”

“Papa,” her hands say, forming the childish diminutive easily, “Papa, I love you.”

“I know, my child,” his hands say kindly, “And I you.”

He kisses her forehead. “Say goodbye to your sisters,” he whispers. He says it with his own voice. “I can handle the rest.”

He swims away. For a moment, Nayeon floats there, untethered and shocked, before she smiles, shakes her head and goes to find her sisters. Saying goodbye is difficult but necessary; her sisters understand. The oldest of her younger sisters smiles at her, knowing. Responsibility falls to her now but she’s strong enough to handle it.

Nayeon goes to the depths. She finds Jeongyeon easily. She’s been waiting for her patiently, her many limbs relaxed against the seabed. They swim up to the surface, the sky blue and endless above them.

“I know what I want,” Nayeon tells her, “I want to go to land. I want to be a human.”

Jeongyeon smiles. Nods. “I can help with that,” her hands say proudly.

Nayeon holds her hands in hers, silencing her momentarily. “I don’t want it for free,” she says with her trembling lips, “I’ll give you something for this and I’ll trust you to keep it safe. I’ll give you my heart, Jeongyeon, every fragile beat of it. You’ll accept it, won’t you?”

Each of Jeongyeon’s limbs comes to embrace her, pulling her close. There is no fear in Nayeon’s heart; only anticipation. Their foreheads come together. Nayeon feels Jeongyeon’s answer brush against her lips.

“Of course, my sweet princess. I’ll keep you safe.”

Their lips meet and they taste of salt.

***

Every year, Nayeon comes back to the sea. To the beach she had first landed on with shaking limbs — just the two — with her witch lover guiding each step. The waves come in, brushing against her toes. In the sea foam, she sees her sisters’ smiling faces; in the distance, she hears her father’s laughter. They welcome her still, each year without fail.

She takes Jeongyeon’s hand in hers and whispers her love into the palm. That same hand pulls her close and her love is reciprocated on her brow and then her lips.

The sand is soft against the sole of their feet. The sun warms their skin.

  
  
  



End file.
